1. Technical Field
The present invention is related to a copy control information deciding apparatus for deciding a piece of copy control information which controls copying of an image.
2. Background Art
In recent years, apparatuses which record and reproduce Audio Visual contents in a Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) or a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) have appeared. These apparatuses can record many contents. Thus, when a recorded content is to be reproduced, the function which presents a menu of the contents for a user in an easily understandable manner and which allows the user to select which content is to be reproduced is important. One of the examples of this function is a still image thumbnail navigation function. The still image thumbnail navigation function is a function which displays, on a single screen, thumbnails which are scaled-down images of still images that respectively represent the contents.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overview of a content viewing system, when the still image thumbnail navigation function is activated in a conventional recording/reproducing apparatus. The operation of the conventional recording/reproducing apparatus is hereinafter described with reference to FIG. 1. The content viewing system is a system with which the user views a content and the like using the recording/reproducing apparatus.
In the system described in FIG. 1, a first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 which is a conventional recording/reproducing apparatus is connected to a television 2 and a second recording/reproducing apparatus 20. The first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 is an apparatus which records and reproduces a content. The television 2 is a display apparatus for displaying output data from the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21. The second recording/reproducing apparatus 20 is an apparatus which records signals, such as a signal of an image which is outputted from the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21, and the like. Note that the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 operates based on an instruction transmitted from a remote control 22 operated by the user.
Identical signals are outputted from the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 to the television 2 and the second recording/reproducing apparatus 20. In other words, the second recording/reproducing apparatus 20 can record signals of images identical to the images which are outputted from the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 and displayed on the television 2.
The first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 includes a storage medium which stores contents, in which plural contents may be stored. Furthermore, image data of thumbnails which are scaled-down images representing each content are stored in an area different from the area where the content is stored.
The image data in a part of the content to be used as a thumbnail representing the part of the content can be automatically decided, or can be designated by the user.
Furthermore, copy control information which is information for protecting copyrights of respective image data are stored in the storage medium within the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21, together with the respective image data of each thumbnail. Each piece of the copy control information is one of “copy-free”, “copy-one-generation” and “no-more-copies”. In the substance data of a content, one of such piece of copy control information added to a frame extracted as a thumbnail is used as copy control information. Note that a frame is a minimal unit that constitutes a moving image.
Once activation of the still image thumbnail navigation function is instructed by the user's operation of the remote control 22, the first recording/reproducing apparatus 21 reads only thumbnail data from the storage medium, reproduces it, and displays a menu displaying the thumbnails on the television 2. With this operation, as shown in FIG. 1, a still image thumbnail navigation screen which is a menu display screen of thumbnails is displayed on the television 2.
Furthermore, six thumbnails are displayed simultaneously. In the case where the number of thumbnails to be displayed is over six, the remaining thumbnails incapable of being displayed are displayed by the user's operations, such as sequentially switching between the pages and scrolling the menu.
The user can select a thumbnail by operating an arrow key 22a of the remote control 22. For example, a cursor is put on a thumbnail 201 in FIG. 1, which indicates that the thumbnail 201 is selected. Note that the cursor is represented by a thick line which surrounds a thumbnail in the diagram.
In a state where one of the thumbnails is selected, the reproduction of the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is started by pressing a reproduction key 22b of the remote control 22. Furthermore, the content corresponding to the selected thumbnail is deleted by pressing a deletion key 22c. 
As described above, the still image thumbnail navigation function is a function which displays a menu displaying thumbnails each representing a content and which improves the convenience of the user's operations, such as reproducing and deleting a content.
Note that when data of still images is written in a DVD/audio disc, one recording method is disclosed in which a piece of copy control information is added to each still image (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-78140 Publication).